1. Field
The following description relates to a pickup damper and a disc drive including the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
A disc drive is a device that irradiates light onto a disc to record and read information. The disc may be a compact disc (CD) or a digital video disc (DVD).
The disc drive includes a pickup, a spindle motor, and a step motor. The pickup reproduces data stored on a disc or records data onto the disc. The spindle motor accommodates a disc on a turn table and rotates the disc. The step motor linearly reciprocates the pickup in a radial direction of the disc.
Normally, a pickup linearly reciprocates in a radial direction of a disc by a lead screw driven by a step motor. However, due to an external shock, the pickup may abnormally move along a lead screw and a guide shaft. In this case, the pickup may be externally shocked to contact other components of the disc drive. Since the pickup includes a laser diode for irradiating light and an optical system, the laser diode and the optical system may be damaged or an aberration of the optical path may occur due to the external shock. The optical system forms an optical path along which the light irradiated from the laser diode is transmitted. In particular, a drop test of a disc drive is performed in order to measure the durability of the disc drive during manufacture of the disc drive. In this case, the shock is also applied to the pickup. Thus, there may be a need for a device for relieving the shock applied the pickup due to an external source.
Various methods for preventing shock from being applied to a pickup may have been disclosed. The methods for preventing the shock may have been published in patents that disclose an elastic member for relieving shock applied to a pickup.